Note 66 — Chapter XXV · PHÆDON.

Aristophan. Nubes, 379-815. Δῖνος βασιλεύει, τὸν Δί’ ἐξεληλακώς. We find Proklus making this same complaint against Aristotle, “that he deserted theological principia, and indulged too much in physical reasonings” — τῶν μὲν θεολογικῶν ἀρχῶν ἀφιστάμενος, τοῖς δὲ φυσικοῖς λόγοις πέρα τοῦ δέοντος ἐνδιατρίβων (Proklus ad Timæum, ii. 90 E, p. 212, Schneider). Pascal also expresses the like displeasure against the Cartesian theory of the vortices. Descartes recognised God as having originally established rotatory motion among the atoms, together with an equal, unvarying quantity of motion: these two points being granted, Descartes considered that all cosmical facts and phenomena might be deduced from them.

“Sur la philosophie de Descartes, Pascal était de son sentiment sur l’automate; et n’en était point sur la matière subtile, dont il se moquait fort. Mais il ne pouvait souffrir sa manière d’expliquer la formation de toutes choses; et il disait très souvent, — Je ne puis pardonner à Descartes: il voudrait bien, dans toute sa philosophie, pouvoir se passer de Dieu: mais il n’a pu s’empêcher de lui accorder une chiquenaude pour mettre le monde en mouvement: après cela, il n’a que faire de Dieu.” (Pascal, Pensées, ch. xi. p. 237, edition de Louandre, citation from Mademoiselle Périer, Paris, 1854.)

Again, Lord Monboddo, in his Ancient Metaphysics (bk. ii. ch. 19, p. 276), cites these remarks of Plato and Aristotle on the deficiencies of Anaxagoras, and expresses the like censure himself against the cosmical theories of Newton:— “Sir Isaac puts me in mind of an ancient philosopher Anaxagoras, who maintained, as Sir Isaac does, that mind was the cause of all things; but when he came to explain the particular phænomena of nature, instead of having recourse to mind, employed airs and æthers, subtle spirits and fluids, and I know not what — in short, any thing rather than mind: a cause which he admitted to exist in the universe; but rather than employ it, had recourse to imaginary causes, of the existence of which he could give no proof. The Tragic poets of old, when they could not otherwise untie the knot of their fable, brought down a god in a machine, who solved all difficulties: but such philosophers as Anaxagoras will not, even when they cannot do better, employ mind or divinity. Our philosophers, since Sir Isaac’s time, have gone on in the same track, and still, I think, farther.”

Lord Monboddo speaks with still greater asperity about the Cartesian theory, making a remark on it similar to what has been above cited from Pascal. (See his Dissertation on the Newtonian Philosophy, Appendix to Ancient Metaphysics, pp. 498-499.)